-Back to Work at the GoF! (Sort Of…)

At the end of December, our teachers Fatima and Razia were among the thousands of other Afghan women banned from working, since they are employed by an NGO (MEPO, as well as our Afghan partners, HEWAD).

For the next 20 days (Razia kept count!) they stayed home while Nik Mohammad and Hedayat kept the Garden of Flowers running. We ‘seconded’ Obaid back from HEWAD where he works, and put him back to work in the classroom and all three men took turns doing different roles to care for and teach the children every day. (Najeeba, the cook, came for a few hours each morning to cook the lunch for everyone.)

Fatima and Razia, in the meantime, began conducting daily lessons with small groups of the children via Whatsapp video. Each day they coordinated with the men at the school, who gathered the specific children, and set up a phone for the connection. At first it was very challenging: the children didn’t understand, and were confused and frightened by having to talk to their believed teachers over the video. But they quickly adapted, and the teachers also quickly got the hang of it, learning how to do group games and activities to keep the learning and engagement going. It was an enormous challenge, though, due to the infrequent electricity that made it very hard to keep their phones charged, and the internet connection was often very unstable.

The teachers were naturally very frustrated, stymied, having to stay at home when they saw so many other women out and working: the ban was not on all women working, but only those who were with NGOs. Women working in the government, or in public schools, or in shops, etc were allowed to work. Fatima and Razia desperately wanted to come back to school – they were bored at home and missed the children and the team terribly, and were ready to take the chance of coming to work.

But HEWAD was not taking any chances: any issues with the Taliban would severely endanger their many social support programs already underway.

Eventually, however, there were rumors that the Taliban had made exceptions for teachers and health workers. HEWAD sent letters to the relevant ministries asking for official permission. In the meantime, they agreed to a slow re-entry, and told Fatima and Razia to alternate days coming to the Garden of Flowers.

There was much rejoicing and relief at this news! Fatima immediately headed to the school and enjoyed a beautiful reunion with the children – many many hugs. And Razia had her reunion the next day.

It’s been a week now (January 27) that the teachers have been running their alternate days. It’s much better than whatsapp video remote lessons. But we are all still waiting for the day when both teachers can be there with all the children, to take in more new children and continue to grow and build the program. Hope and resilience remains strong. It will happen!